Work Text:
Van wakes up burning.
She’s seven and the power’s been shut off. It’s the dead of summer and humidity hangs like a thick fog inside the house- the wood panels lining the walls bow and bulge with the pressure of it.
Van wakes covered in sweat, choking on her own breaths, and hardly thinks anything of it- creeps out of her own bedroom, looking quickly into the living room at her unconscious mother, before tiptoeing into Charlie’s room.
Her mom’s been working nights at the bar and grill up the road and her dad’s gone for weeks at a time on trucking jobs. Charlie is around though- has a gig doing pool maintenance at the trailer park down the road. So, Van spends the whole summer in a pink polka dot swimsuit and Charlie’s old swim trunks, playing marco polo with a scrawny kid named Natalie who cusses almost as much as Van’s mom.
She plops down beside Charlie’s bed, presses her elbows into the mattress, hardly weighing enough to make a dent. He stirs anyway, grumbles.
“Fuck off, Van.”
“It’s hot,” Van whines. “Are you going to the pool today?”
He rolls over, lifts his sweaty head just enough to look at her. “No, I don’t work today.”
“Please Charlie? There’s no air in here, I’m melting.” She follows up the statement by flopping onto his bed with a bad impression of the witch from The Wizard of Oz. It’s her favorite movie. Natalie says her favorite movie is The Dark Crystal but Van thinks that one is way too scary.
Natalie promised she’d be at the pool today and they’d planned this whole elaborate game where they would act out the plot of Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure (which they could both agree is an awesome movie). So Van has to be at the pool today.
Charlie shoves her in reply. “Go away, carrot-head.”
She sulks back to her room, throws on her swimsuit and galoshes before approaching her sleeping mother on the couch. She’s still in her jeans and work shirt- the low cut one that her boobs fall out of- eyeliner smeared. Van nudges her shoulder gently, tickles her chin like her mom sometimes would to wake her. It doesn’t work.
She smells like smoke and fryer oil and something sour Van can’t place. “Fuck off,” she groans, swatting lazily.
So Van does, walks the 10 minutes over to the pool even though it’s seven in the morning and Ralph the Groundskeeper probably hasn’t even been over with the keys. She waits by the gate until he does, lies when he asks if anyone knows she’s here, paddles around listlessly, waiting for Natalie to show up.
As it turns out, she never does. Van spends all day kicking around in that pool with the annoying kids and the old people and the beer-bellied men who tell her she looks like a dyke in her swim trunks. Van remembers to ask Natalie what that word means next time she sees her.
It’s nearly time for dinner when she returns home, burnt to a crisp, an enraged Bev Palmer waiting with a raised hand and a barking voice. Her mother beats her ass right before spreading calamine lotion over her sunburnt body, calls her a fucking idiot right before telling her she was worried sick. Van goes to bed with tears in her eyes, suffocating in heat, completely ablaze.
______
Van wakes up burning. She’s fourteen and she can hear her mom pulling out of the driveway already. It’s Saturday and she has a weekend soccer practice- which her mom knows because Van has reminded her of that fact enough times to be called ‘fucking annoying.’
And yet, she wakes to the sound of Bev Palmer’s Volvo rumbling off- enraged that she’s not surprised, that she should’ve known better.
Van is fourteen and angry. Because her dad keeled over six years ago and Charlie fucked off to who knows where last summer and she’s left to stand between Bev Palmer and self-destruction like some human punching bag.
A human punching bag that really needs to get to Wiskayok High School before eight thirty this morning.
She thinks of calling Natalie but they’ve been weird for the past few months- drifting apart in that awkward way that neither of them is willing to acknowledge. Natalie’s got a new haircut and new friends and a harsher attitude that impresses Van as much as it puts her off. She knows Natalie too well, can’t adjust to the changes when she herself has remained so unshakably, insufferably the same. Still that headstrong, tomboyish, pink-cheeked kid who looks away during the sad parts of movies and clicks her heels like Dorothy when she thinks no one’s looking.
Van doesn’t blame Natalie for changing, wishes she could as well.
She grits her teeth as she gets ready to leave, tugs on her dad’s old carpenter jacket and throws her duffel over her shoulder.
It’s January and the ground is covered in sludgy, half-melted snow that melts through Van’s tennis shoes as she walks the five miles to the school, knowing she’ll likely be late for practice despite leaving twenty minutes early. Wind biting at her face, toes numbing in her shoes, Van still simmers heedlessly, something hot and painful twisting in her gut.
Van is fourteen and she knows to be angry now. But knowing you’ve been dealt a shit hand doesn’t make it any less shitty.
What’s that they say about being born in burning houses? Sometimes, Van would swear that the world is burning down around her. Other times, she thinks it might just be her.
All Van knows is that she’s learned to operate with flames licking at her heels and a simmering ache in her gut.
That’s what keeps her trudging down Main Street, despite the burning chill. She stares down at her sloshing shoes as she walks, doesn’t notice a car slowing beside her, a familiar face leaning out the passenger window.
“Hey! Van, right?” a voice calls out, steady and neutral. “Need a ride?”
Van looks up, knowing even without looking that this is Taissa Turner. Taissa only came to town last year at the start of eighth grade and hung around Jackie and Shauna all year- two people Van tends to avoid if at all possible. But Taissa isn’t like them- she’s witty and clear-eyed and direct. She knows the answers in class even when she doesn’t choose to raise her hand, she makes jokes in the locker room just to watch them fly over Laura Lee’s head. At practice, Taissa is focused; Van loves the way she smirks right after a good play, the way her curls look when they fall out of her bun.
Van knows without looking that this is Taissa Turner and her heart nearly falls out of her ass.
“Uhhh-“ Van looks up at her, looks back down, readjusts her bag. “Uhm- I don’t-“
Taissa scoffs. “C’mon, it’s cold, we’re going to the same place-“
“Hop on in, sweetheart, it’s no trouble,” a woman Van can only assume is Mrs. Turner calls out from the driver’s side.
So Van crawls into the backseat of the warm SUV, greeted by the soft sounds of TLC’s “Baby-Baby-Baby.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
Taissa’s bun peeks over the headrest, her fingers tap the rhythm of the song against the center console. Van has to force herself not to get distracted as Mrs. Turner starts in on polite conversation.
“You’re the JV goalie, aren’t you Van? Tai’s mentioned how good you are”
She barely manages not to fall out of her seat, has to tamp down the burning ache in her chest to form a reply. “Oh- I don’t know about that,” she sputters. “Taissa’s pretty great too- makes my job easy, all I have to do is stand there.”
Mrs. Turner chuckles good-naturedly at that. Taissa turns over her shoulder to Van.
“Take the compliment, Palmer,” Taissa smirks. “You’re good, you’ll definitely make varsity next season.”
“So will you,” Van adds, holding back a toothy smile.
Taissa turns back around in her seat but Van can tell she’s still smirking, feels it like a warm, blossoming thing in her chest. “I know,” is all she says, an air of satisfaction to it that makes Mrs. Turner roll her eyes in a way that tells Van that this is typical of Taissa. She wishes she could be that confident, could burn in a way that made her strong.
Instead she’s melting, like the witch from The Wizard of Oz. A puddle of goo at Taissa’s feet from this moment until forever.
_____
Van wakes up burning. She turned eighteen just last month in the middle of the forest, in a different world than the one she was raised in.
She wakes up and for a moment, she thinks the world is on fire.
(What’s that they say about being born in burning houses?)
But then Van looks up at the faces of her friends and knows that it’s just her.
There’s pain of many kinds- aching, stinging, burning, stabbing. There’s no one way to name it, no one place that it comes from. It’s just blinding, searing.
Van wakes up burning and wonders how the world could hate her this much.
There’s people, hands, the smell of smoke and blood and dirt. Blood- lots of blood. In her eyes, in her mouth, running into her ears, soaking into her shirt, trickling down her arm.
There’s Tai in front of her, holding her shoulders, as if to keep her from bucking in pain. Van wishes she could see, wishes she could breathe. There’s too much blood to do so, too much pain. Everything burns, she decides. A million different aches but all of it burns.
She’s startlingly awake, agonizingly aware. She’s blinking blood out of her vision, feeling it drip from her cheek. It shouldn’t be doing that, she knows. She shouldn’t be swallowing down blood by the mouthful.
Van decides fairly quickly that she can’t be fixed. Not here, not like this. There’s no way you can hurt like this and live.
Taissa doesn’t agree. Van can’t be sure but it feels like there are hours of nothing but hands touching her, dressing her wounds, forcing her to her feet. There’s pain in waves, forcing bile out of her mouth, stinging blisteringly at the gaping slash in her face. Taissa pushes her along anyway. They have to get back to the cabin, she says. They have to get back so that they can fix Van up.
Van thinks it would be best if they put her out of her fucking misery.
She says as much, when a wave of agony has her crumbling, collapsing against Taissa who finally finally collapses too.
There are hours Van loses to the pain, sitting there on the forest floor as the world grows dark around them. There are Taissa’s hands threading against her scalp, gentle for the first time in hours. There’s Taissa’s voice, soft and wavering as she tells stories and says she’s sorry and begs Van to stay awake.
Van lets herself give up. Involuntary moans and shudders are the only signs of life she gives for hours, as she lays against Taissa’s chest and stares down at the talisman that hangs there, watches it away as Tai rocks them lightly back and forth. Van can’t fall asleep.
The next time she is aware of anything other than pain, it’s fear. A needle and thread poised over her face, a room full of horrified faces. Tai is crouched at the crown of her head, pressing a kiss to her hairline even as she holds Van’s mouth shut with a strong hand. It’s the duality of burning- warmth with the pain.
Van didn’t think it could get worse but it can, it does. She bucks like a wild animal, begs with a closed mouth to fucking die die die.
There’s a weight pressing over her legs, a hand rubbing comfortingly along her thigh. It’s Natalie, she realizes, holding Van still with her whole body, keeping her from floating away like ash.
By the time the stitches on her face are done, by the time Akilah has moved on to her mauled arm, Van is fading. Shock and blood loss dropping her into a soundless oblivion.
The next day, Van wakes up burning again.
____
Van wakes up shivering.
She lays awake in the attic with no blankets most nights, lets the cold keep her conscious while she watches Taissa, ready and waiting for the moment she is pulled back into the forest.
Tonight, Van must have fallen asleep because she startles awake with blue fingertips and the sounds of Tai’s soft breathing at her side. She looks exhausted even in sleep, worn down in a way that scares Van.
Van is eighteen and she has been burning alive for eight months, torn apart by the wilderness and put back together differently.
She pulls Tai’s blanket back up under her chin before throwing her own over her shoulders and creeping out of the attic, out onto the front porch of the cabin.
It’s early morning, the sun so low it casts everything in shadow. Flurries of snow wisp around, softer and dryer and colder than they ever were in Jersey. Van breathes in deeply, lets it sting in her throat.
“Early riser?”
Nat’s voice makes Van jump, has her swinging around to face Nat, who sits with her knees against her chest on the bench by the door. Van sinks down beside her, huddles inside her too-thin blanket, attempts a smirk. “Just can’t wait to start the day.”
Nat huffs a laugh, head falling forward and then lolling to look at Van intently. “Is Tai…”
“Sleeping,” Van answers the unasked question.
They lapse into stilted silence. Van is wading through a fog of questions, sat beside the best friend she ever had, the girl who used to burn the same way as her.
“You think it’s all bullshit,” Van says at last, the words forcing past her lips without permission.
Nat inhales sharply, stares at Van’s profile- the scarred side that still stings if she thinks about it too hard. “I think we’re all losing our fucking minds so…”
Van stares across the porch at the pyre, a hellish banquet table, a dark mass peeking out through the freshly fallen snow.
Nat follows Van’s gaze. “All I’m trying to do is stay alive.”
Van and Nat are made out of the same awful stuff, born in the same burning houses with the flames licking at their heels. But Natalie hardens in the heat, dries out and turns to stone like kiln-fired clay. Delicate and sharp and hard.
Van, on the other hand, melts. Like the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz. Soft and malleable. Falling between the fingers of those around her.
Van is the same as she has always been- still looks away during the sad parts of movies and thinks that if she clicks her heels hard enough, she just might get home.
“I’m trying to do the same thing.”